This essay analyzes three important Christological texts in the reconstructed synoptic sayings source Q: 4,1-13 (the temptation legend), 6,20b-49 (the Q sermon) and 10,21-22 (the thanksgiving of Jesus). According to the current consensus in Q studies, these texts belong to three different compositional strata and reflect different theological concerns. I coordinate them in the document’s redactional layer (Q2), demonstrating their compatibility on literary-critical and traditionhistorical grounds. My hypothesis is that these texts provide the necessary Christological framework for Q2’s depiction of Jesus as the messianic Son of Man and Lord by stressing his identity as God’s unique Son.

Reexamining Q2: Son of God Christology
in Q’s Redactional Layer
As is well known, the synoptic sayings source Q is a document of
which we possess no physical copy, but which has nonetheless been
tentatively reconstructed from the material shared by the New Testa-
ment Gospels of Matthew and Luke according to the two-source hy-
pothesis. While it seems hardly necessary to present a detailed analy-
sis of the synoptic problem here, due to the highly technical nature of
my inquiry into Q’s text, its hypothetical status must be briefly ad-
dressed. It would be quite unreasonable to deny that status in the ab-
sence of physical evidence. At the same time, the mere absence of a
physical copy should hardly undermine the validity of the hypothesis
unless significant faults should be exhibited and alternate solutions
proven to be superior. The debate concerning Q’s existence therefore
hinges on the solution to the synoptic problem which demands an ex-
planation for the obvious literary interdependence of the Gospels of
Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Here Q competes with fellow hypotheses,
viz. alternate solutions attempting to account for the synoptic problem
by avoiding Q yet similarly relying on synoptic literary clues not cor-
roborated by external evidence. Q’s main challenge stems in particular
from those solutions which attempt to explain the synoptic interde-
pendence by appealing to Matthew’s or Luke’s direct use of the other.
These theories, as well as the Griesbach hypothesis which proposes
that Matthew and Luke were used by Mark, are inevitably fraught with
considerable problems well documented in contemporary New Testa-
ment scholarship 1. Because of those problems and despite the chal-
lenge presented by the so-called minor agreements, the two-source hy-
pothesis whereby Matthew and Luke each employed the Gospel
of Mark and Q as their main documentary sources has become the
consensus of New Testament studies. While that consensus remains
not unanimous, it has been adopted far beyond the field of specifically
Q studies, has received wide acceptance among the leading Matthean
1
For a comprehensive analysis of the weaknesses of the Griesbach and Farrer-
Goulder hypotheses, as well as of the more complex solutions proposed by Léon
Vaganay and Marie-Émile Boismard, see J.S. KLoppeNBorG VerBIN, Excavating
Q. The History and Setting of the Sayings Gospel (edinburgh 2000) 38-50.
BiBlica 97.1 (2016) 62-78